Happy Birthday to Me!
I love my birthdays. Always have. I really never worried about turning a year older. Well… maybe once. When I turned from 16 to 17 years old. I would never again be 16 and never been kissed!
My mother made sure my brothers and I had a birthday cake, a gift, and that we always celebrated birthdays together as a family. We had very few birthday parties where we invited our friends. I’m not sure why other than it was kind of the norm back then.
As I got older, I would celebrate with friends and co-workers by going out to dinner, a movie or even dancing.
Now I celebrate birthdays for an entire week!
It happened quite by accident. During a week of my birthday, my best friend from grade school who lives in Texas mailed a birthday package to my office. She was not the only one. A friend from Albuquerque also sent a package. One of my dear friends who I work with presented me with a gift. You see a pattern here? My mother showed up with a gift on another day and on the last day of the week, my actual birthday, my husband took me to lunch.
Thus, the Birthday Week was born!
The following year I declared Birthday Week and for that thoughtful twist, instead of receiving gifts I give gifts to my co-workers. No gifts for me! Period! Because my co-workers thought it was weird not to give birthday gifts, I relented by saying, “OK… you can get me a birthday card.” Continue Reading